I shot the Boston Skyline at the proverbial blue hour http://bluehoursite.com/ to capture the cold winter night sky as well as the buildings lights. It was a Sunday night so not as many lights as during the week but enough to give a nice look to the evening scene.

The camera was the K-7 and the lens the Tokina 80-400mm at about 120mm. The shot was with a tripod and 7 images were stitched in MSICE. In spite of the use of a tripod camera shake was a problem as the wind was gusting to 25MPH and was catching the long lens.

This panorama has more problems than virtues. First was slight blur from camera shake on the tripod (perhaps should have left SR on due to windy conditions). The second and larger problem was that in using the longer lens I think put the nodal point of the lens further off the center of my tripod than I have seen with other pano shots I have taken in the past. This I think caused the unlevel waterline in the harbor when the image got stitched. Need to get a pano rail or fabricate one myself out of plexiglas. If I do fabricate one I will post a photo of it and explain its function.

GW, I will go back and retake this scene again in milder weather.

In spite of all the problems I liked the overall look of the scene and wanted to share it.

This panorama has more problems than virtues. First was slight blur from camera shake on the tripod (perhaps should have left SR on due to windy conditions). The second and larger problem was that in using the longer lens I think put the nodal point of the lens further off the center of my tripod than I have seen with other pano shots I have taken in the past. This I think caused the unlevel waterline in the harbor when the image got stitched. Need to get a pano rail or fabricate one myself out of plexiglas. If I do fabricate one I will post a photo of it and explain its function.

GW, I will go back and retake this scene again in milder weather.

In spite of all the problems I liked the overall look of the scene and wanted to share it.

The photo shows the rail I have made today from a 1/2" piece of Plexiglas. I have not yet begun to calibrate my lenses but when I do I plan to scribe marks on the rail showing where each lens will be placed for proper nodal point positioning.

As you can see from the picture of my camera on the rail the lens center is close to being over the center of the ball head.

I think the next thing I will fabricate is a right angle plate so that I can mount my lens centered over the ball head in portrait mode. This is still a work in process for me but I have become quite interested in Pano photography and plan to do a lot more of it.

I too really like to tone of this image Lou. My only suggestion would be to see if you can straighten the image. The shore line seems to be tilted up on the right side. I can't tell if it is the result of the multiple shots that were stitched or not. The lighting is fantastic though!

Very cool rails, by the way. I like the picture except for the water-line problems. The lack of sharpness doesn't show at this size.

The neat thing about your rails, is that you could probably use them as poor-man's macro rails, too. They wouldn't be as convenient as true rails with the crank to adjust the camera in very small amounts, but it would be better than moving the whole tripod.